"You may do that if you like, but try and bring it back with you if you can."
"Do you wish to leave us?"
"I do not mean that," hastily added Mrs. Wolston, "but I am beginning to get anxious about my son, poor fellow. If the Nelson has not arrived at the Cape, then he will suppose we are all drowned, and I should like to fall in with some means of assuring him of our safety."
"Oh yes," cried the two girls, "do try and fall in with a ship; our poor brother will be so wretched."
"You might say our brother as well," added the two young men.
Here the two mothers interchanged a glance of intelligence, which might mean very little, but which likewise might signify a great deal.
A moment of intense anxiety had now arrived for Becker and his two sons; they could scarcely refrain from shedding tears, but they felt that the slightest imprudence of that nature would divulge everything.
"Come now, my lads, look alive," cried Willis, in a voice which he meant to be gruff; "if you intend to take a few hours' repose before we start in the morning, it is time to be off."
Fritz and Jack, had it been to save their lives, could not now have helped throwing more than usual energy into their parting embraces that particular afternoon; but they passed through the ordeal with tolerable firmness, and then with heavy hearts turned towards the door.
"I think I will walk with you as far as Rockhouse," said Becker.